1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to advertising. More specifically, the invention relates to method and system for providing advertisements by employing an interactive television system.
2. Description of Prior Art
Advertising using traditional media, such as television, radio, newspapers and magazines, is well known. Unfortunately, even when armed with demographic studies and entirely reasonable assumptions about the typical audience of various media outlets, advertisers recognize that much of their advertisement budget is simply wasted. Moreover, it is difficult to identify and eliminate such waste. The Internet, and particularly, World Wide Web (Web), has experienced tremendous growth during recent years. Advertising over more interactive media had become popular. The Web allows users to retrieve and access text, graphics, audio, video, and other information from remote servers. The Web has become a valuable source of news, educational resources, commercial information, entertainment, and the like. As for delivering commercial information to a user using the Internet, it has been found that advertisement in Web pages are most effective if they can be tailored and directed to segments of the population that are likely to be interested in advertised products and services.
One of the simplest methods of tailoring Internet advertisements to recipients is similar techniques used in television, radio and other media. In particularly, advertisements are selected to correspond to the subject matter of the Web page or other Internet resources. The U.S. Pat. No. 7,346,606 to Bharat disclosed an art for rendering advertisements to a user by monitoring user behavior and determining the user's topic of interest when the user is assessing the Internet through browsing Web pages.
Furthermore, mobile communication devices have gained significant popularity in recent years. Users are using the mobile device such as, for example, iPhone from Apple Inc, Cupertino, Calif., to assess the Internet services. Innovative methods for delivering advertisements to users by employing mobile communication devices have been developed.
Among all electronic devices, television is still one of the most popular devices used by various users. Advertisements delivered to viewers through the television are typically broadcast to the viewers without differentiation, which makes the advertisements less effective. In recent years, there is a trend that television program is delivered by using of communication network rather than more conventional means such as by broadcast and cables. Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) is a system where a digital television service is delivered using Internet Protocol over a network infrastructure such as for example, over a broadband connection. A general definition of IPTV is television content is received by a user through the technologies used for computer networks instead of being delivered through conventional means. More particularly, in IPTV, television programming is delivered as video contents, which is divided into data packets and streamed to consumers over the Internet. The IPTV stream of data packets is received by a set top box, which is connected to a subscriber's television. Typically, the set top box is connected to the Internet over a broadband connection.
IPTV provides greater control and flexibility to consumers than traditional TV distribution technologies. For example, because television programming is delivered point-to-point from a provider to a subscriber, a user may individually control programming being delivered. Also, because television programming is being delivered over the Internet, a user may receive IPTV program from around the world.
In various other digital television delivery systems, such as digital cable and satellite, digital data streams are delivered to a set top box which is connected to a television. These digital television delivery systems can provide various levels of control and flexibility to users.
IPTV and other digital television delivery systems offer greater control to service provider than traditional TV distribution technologies. Service providers can then provide personalized TV advertising. That is, service providers can target specific users or groups of users with customized advertisements based on viewing or purchasing habits of the users. The U.S. Pat. No. 6,463,595 to Hendricks et al disclosed a system to deliver targeted advertisements to different groups of viewers during the commercial breaks to improve the effectiveness of the advertisements. In the U.S. Pat. No. 6,718,551 to Swix et al, a method is disclosed for providing targeted advertisements to a user based upon tracking and storing and analyzing the viewer's selections. In the U.S. patent application 2007/0291747 by Stern et al, a method is disclosed for user to user targeted advertising using a digital television delivery service. In the U.S. Pat. No. 7,269,837 to Redling et al., an art is disclosed for providing advertisement from a central database server connected to a global computer network to distributed sites via interactive television. A representative icon is presented to a subscriber on a television indicating an advertisement. When the icon is selected, advertisement information details are retrieved from storage in a local memory or from the server and presented to the user. In U.S. patent application 2006/0031405 by Goldman et al, an art is disclosed for selecting and inserting advertisements in an information documents displayed to a user, wherein the selection is based at least in part on television programming viewed by the user.
The tickers of television have been used to deliver real time stock price and headlines of the news. In U.S. patent application 2003/0167467 by Allen et al., The ticker for an interactive television system has user-customizable features including a feature to exclude ticker topics dynamically from the display screen while the ticker is being presented.
All above mentioned prior arts have attempted to deliver targeted advertisements to a user by leveraging programmability of the interactive television. It should be noted that television is a home appliance and is typically shared by multiple family members, who may have different topic of interest. Therefore, it is desirable that the interactive television system including the television terminal, a set top box and a remote control can be used to determine the identity of a user and can deliver the targeted advertisement messages accordingly.